Originally Posted by
212man
The Thunder City Buccaneer accident is a prime example (maybe that is one example he quotes? - haven’t got that far yet!)
I haven't included the Thunder City Lightning incident - though I did do quite a lot of investigation as I'd had a trip in it a few years earlier. Truly tragic incident, especially reading reports of the final radio exchanges.
The failure of the ejection seat to operate (as previously mentioned in this forum - because the canopy had not separated) was the same as in the Lightning incident I do cover which was the 1970 crash in which USAF Exchange Officer Bill Schaffner was killed. & which resulted in many years of bogus/ludicrous UFO stories being put forward.
His incident resulted in a fleet-wide check of Lightnings which revealed a number of jets had the same problem in the canopy release mechanism - meaning the seat would NEVER have fired on pulling the handle - which was rectified. There are a number of 'old & bold' pilots still kicking around today who subsequently ejected successfully because of that discovery.